The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

Business, that's easily defined - it's other people's money.

The computer is a moron.

The new information technology... Internet and e-mail... have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.

Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations... They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them 'operators' or 'programmers.'

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.

Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the 'naturals', the ones who somehow know how to teach.

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.

I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man's private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious... I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a post mortem examination to vivisection without anaesthetics.

It is not, of course, complete yet - but some sentences were understood this afternoon... I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem - and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas - and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say 'oral method' to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say 'sign language' to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.

In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

Sometime in the early Seventies, gender-free toys were briefly a popular idea. So at Christmas on the California beach in 1972, we downplayed the dolls with frilly dresses and loaded up Santa's sack with toy trucks and earth movers for our three daughters.

While Pickstown may not be what it once was, it still is framed by the natural beauty of the ancient river, the sweep of the Great Plains, and the long, unbroken shoreline of the lake behind the dam. It gave me a 19th-century childhood in a modern mid-20th-century town, and for that I will always be grateful.

I've interviewed presidents and royalty, rock stars and movie stars, famous generals and captains of industry; I've had front row seats at Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games; my books have been on best-seller lists, and my marriage is a long-running success.